


death has faces

by dregstrash



Category: The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo, The Grishaverse
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, F/M, Zombie Apocalypse, leigh bardugo, the grishaverse - Freeform, there was only one blanket, zoyalai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:53:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 15,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22042864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dregstrash/pseuds/dregstrash
Summary: Just as Zoya is close to finding the whereabouts of the man who had taken everything from her, she gets captured alongside a smartmouthed prisoner who has a few too many tricks up his sleeve. As they start their journeys together it turns out their paths intertwine in more ways than one, and circumstances force them to start relying on one another despite their best efforts. Is Zoya going to have the revenge she’s seeking? Is Nikolai going to finally save the people that he swore to protect? If they can escape the zombie hoards that are just wandering around looking for people to eat, the chances are pretty high.
Relationships: Nikolai Lantsov/Zoya Nazyalensky
Comments: 20
Kudos: 43
Collections: Grishaverse Big Bang 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was my contribution to the Grishaverse Big Bang
> 
> While this fic almost killed me, I’m excited to share it with everyone, and hope everyone enjoys my rendition of Zoyalai in a Zombie Apocalypse. This is a multi-chapter story, and I’m posting Chapter 1 here– the rest will be in the ao3 link!
> 
> Rating: Heavy Pg-13 (mostly for violence and cursing)

There was nothing poetic about death. There was no soft scent of overturned earth or the beautiful words of people who had too many “if only”s. There was no metaphoric rain that brought everything gray or a sliver of sunlight that served as a beacon of hope that life would go on. Death was simply death and anyone who thought differently was on their way to becoming value meals for the undead.

Maybe that’s why Zoya was able to survive for this long by herself. She just put one foot in front of the other, shedding no tears, hesitating for nobody, and never once flinching. People died. People got turned. And still she marched on. No destination. No map. No plan.

Well—there was a plan. A plan to have her last moments (when they eventually came) spent dying in the glory of blissful, sweet revenge. But that came later. For now, she kept walking.

She kept pressing her hand against her arm, keeping the spare rag she had cut from her shirt tightly against the weeping wound, praying to whatever deities that may or may not exist that this skeleton of a town still had a drug store. And that drug store wasn’t completely raided—or crawling with zombies.

She limped along the cracked pavement, watching out for any loose rocks or larger bits of debris. Like in all the other cities she breezed through, the road was congested with abandoned cars. Some looked stripped bare and others had vague human shapes hanging out of broken windows.

If the state of the cars or barely burned down buildings were any indication, it looked as if life had only recently left the area. Which was a rare thing. Zoya’s spirit lifted a little at the thought of real supplies to stitch her up, and maybe even some antibiotics, if she was lucky enough.

But just as she began to see the promise of a drug store, the back of Zoya’s neck prickled at the sound of low growling. Her ears pricked up and she could just make out the sound of heavy footsteps.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.” Zoya cursed as quietly as she could. She let go of her arm and winced as cold air hit her wound, but she didn’t waste any more time. She carefully unsheathed her machete from her back, and readjusted the strap of her machine gun. She didn’t have that many bullets left, and she was not about to cause any more noise than necessary.

The sound of the zombies was getting closer, and Zoya’s heart crept to her throat.

She just had to stay calm. If she stayed calm and quiet, maybe they could pass her by. There was no reason she had to fight them off. Yet.

She started to move to an empty alleyway just as the first rotting face turned the corner. Her stomach churned at the sight, but she had to stay focused. She just had to reach the alley then maybe—

_ BAM _


	2. Chapter 2

“Ah, the princess awakes.” 

Those were the first words that Zoya heard and though her head felt like it had been beaten with a hammer and her tongue felt heavy in her mouth, she was overwhelmed with the urge to hit the owner of the voice.

“How about you try calling me princess again, and see which one of us never wakes up?” she grumbled, fighting for her eyes to open. She needed to get up. Stillness usually meant death, and she didn’t know how long she had been unconscious, but it was long enough.

“Bold words from a person currently chained to a bed.”

Zoya’s eyes were dry and burning, but pain didn’t match the utter irritation that she was indeed chained to a bed and that she only discovered that when she instinctively tried to raise her hand to slap the insolence right out of the male voice somewhere in her general vicinity.

The only good news was that she was chained solely by her wrists, leaving her legs free, and without giving it much thought she whipped one of legs off of the metal slab that he called a bed and was satisfied when she hit the outside of the other person’s legs. With a great amount of force.

“Shit!” The man yelped, and his pain gave Zoya enough energy to push the rest of her body up and start to adjust to her new surroundings.

Although there wasn’t much to adjust to considering that the underground basement that she seemed to be imprisoned in was lit with a single dim bulb in the middle of the grimy space. Whoever she was imprisoned with appeared to be more shadow than person, and she wished that she could have seen him clearly. If only so that she could look at him right in the eye when she threatened him.

The bed that she was apparently chained to was pushed up against the dirty cement wall and bolted onto the floor. And it was almost pointless to even look for her weapons, but her hand itched to reach for the familiar grip of her machete, and her back felt too exposed without her gun.

“You have guessed correctly, and your weapons have been divided among the rabble upstairs.”

Zoya’s attention snapped back to her annoying companion, and she had to make a mental note that he might be a little too observant. In her growing list of trying to plan for her escape, she added incapacitating him because she took no chances. Ever.

“Now, you might be going through the five stages of prisoner’s dilemma, and count me as your guide through it.”

Does this guy ever stop talking?

When Zoya looked at him again, he had leaned against the metal frame of the bed, and for the first time, Zoya noticed that one of his hands were similarly chained to the opposite leg of the bed.

“Now, you’ve gone through the first stage. Understanding. You realize you’re chained to a metal bed. Your weapons are gone. And yet you’re still alive. It brings you to the second stage. Questioning. Why are you here? Where are you? Why are you still alive? Who is this extremely handsome man sitting next to me—”

Zoya snorted, “You’re awfully confident for someone sitting in the dark.”

“You’ll just have to trust me then.” She didn’t know how, but she could practically hear the smirk in his voice.

“I don’t trust anyone.”

“Already jumping to stage five. That’s fascinating.”

“Do you ever shut up? Because if they kept you alive with a mouth like yours, maybe getting out of here is going to be easier than I thought.”

“Bad habits form when you have universal blood type, and these scavengers keep you for longer than necessary.”

“Universal blood type?” Whatever calm Zoya was trying to contain started to slip. Blood Baggers were the last thing she wanted to get involved with, and it only made her want for an escape greater than she thought possible.

“Yup. Lucky me, and lucky you, because if you didn’t already know—”

“I have a universal blood type.” Zoya murmured.

“Ding ding ding. I’d give you a prize, but I was ill prepared.”

“No.” Zoya got up from the bed, her head spinning a little from the bump in the back of her skull, but she started pulling at the metal handcuffs that were chafing against her skin. “I am not staying here just so I can give blood to a bunch of pigs.”

“Hmm…I feel like you can come up with a better insult. Why don’t you try again?”

She really wished there was more light in this basement, because when she inevitably killed whoever her fellow prisoner was, she wanted him to see her do it.

Zoya pulled again, but it was hopeless. She wasn’t moving. The skin of her wrist was going to tear if she didn’t stop, and she still had no plan for when she got out.

“Are you telling me you never tried to escape?” Zoya demanded. A loud thump sounded from whatever was above the basement, and she didn’t have a good feeling about that.

“Desperate people  _ try _ . Clever people succeed. When the time is right. Besides, it’s hard to get the timing right when you’re stuck in a basement. There’s a hoard that roams around here every other week, and that’s usually around the time security is a little thin since everyone’s desperately trying to keep this fortress un-infected.”

“Your plan is to escape in the middle of a lockdown with a potential zombie hoard wandering around?”

She watched the shoulders of his shadow move up and down in a shrug, “It’s either cut through brain dead monsters or become an eternal blood donor. So what will it be, general, help me help you?”

“General?”

“I figured if I called you princess, you’d kill me the first chance you got. ‘General’ seemed more appropriate.”

His body was leaning towards Zoya, and her mind split with indecision. She shouldn’t trust him. She didn’t even know what he looked like, for God's sake. What if she agreed and once they were out, he immediately abandoned her? What if this was all a ruse and he was really working for the Blood Baggers who snuck up on her? But, on the other hand, he could get her out of here. And once she was out, it would be easy to get rid of him—either to leave him or kill him—but she’d have to actually leave first.

Five minutes in this world is worth lifetimes, and in the two minutes she woke up and started talking to her companion, he seemed harmless enough. At least enough so that she could easily overpower him if given the opportunity.

“What do you need me to do?” she huffed.

“I need you to make as much noise as possible, until one of our gracious hosts comes down and tells you to be quiet. Then I can take it from there.”

“That’s it? You couldn’t do that yourself?”

“They stopped coming down for me the first week I got captured. I need new meat. Preferably, someone who hasn’t been immediately sucked dry and then dumped out back.”

“How long have you been here exactly?”

For the first time in this endless conversation, silence stretched between them, and the weighted nature of it made her question how long this man had been planning this escape.

  
  


“Been here long enough to come up with a plan. I’m assuming you’d rather not know what they try to feed you when you’re down here for longer than three days, so do you mind?”

He made a gesture with one of his hands that obviously indicated he wanted her to start fulfilling his request. And Zoya gave another huff. She supposed she could get one of her captors down here. If she was being honest, she was more than happy for a reunion: she had a bone to pick with one of them.


	3. Chapter 3

Before the outbreak, Nikolai had always been someone who preferred to use his brain instead of his fists. Not like he hadn’t gotten into his fair share of fights or scuffles (you couldn’t survive in the military without learning how to throw a few good punches), but it all seemed so cumbersome to him. Why fight the pair of drunks at the bar when he could simply trick them into fighting each other? Why pick a fight with the commander who had taken advantage of his fair share of soldiers when he could simply sweet talk his way into a very important meeting with his General and make some very heavy accusations that landed that commander on his ass? 

Fighting was more effort than it was worth, and he supposed that’s also how he ended up in the organic science division of the Navy. Days of exchanging fists with the rabble had started to fade, but then came the report of a failed Russian experiment blowing up a lab and exactly two weeks later, there was report of rabid people showing cannibalistic tendencies. From there the panic snowballed so much so that the whole human population seemed to take up arms against each other. 

Even when Nikolai had been quarantined in a lab to try to find a cure for the infected that were starting to overtake New York, he had to fight his way out to get back home to see if his family had been able to make it to a safe zone.

They hadn’t.

But he couldn’t count the trip back home as a complete waste because he eventually stumbled upon a small band of very vulnerable chemists holed up in a decrepit lab who seemed to be onto a cure-- they just needed a bigger, better lab to prove that they were right.

That’s where all the trouble started, he supposed. Because as soon as he organized a party to travel further south towards the designated Safe Havens that had some resources, it seemed they only gathered more and more people until Nikolai had a small village following him. 

It wasn’t very ideal when he was ambushed in the middle of a scouting trip and dragged to who knows where with no way to contact Genya, David, Nadia, or the twins. He hoped his back-up plans in the event of his death or disappearance were enough to get them to where they needed to go, but it also left little room for a rescue party.

Then again, he was always the type to save himself. This time shouldn’t be any different. Even if he had to wait three weeks to properly track when one of the Blood Baggers came down to take their weekly pint of his blood, when his meals came in, and exactly which guards seemed the easiest to take down. He was willing to wait for as long as he needed as long as the perfect opportunity to enact a plan presented itself. 

And the appearance of the new prisoner warranted that opportunity. They wouldn’t know her tendencies yet, and when she started screaming bloody murder from the top of her lungs, he was hoping they’d bolt down immediately—probably scared that she was trying to kill herself and cut off a fresh supply of blood.

The iron door slammed open as two pairs of boots stomped down the stairs, and Nikolai grinned.

Fate may have left him very briefly when he was ambushed in the first place, but it seems like she was back and ready to be helpful once more. He noticed pretty early on that the people that had decided to make him a never-ending supply of blood were mere skin and bone themselves. They weren’t fighters with meat on their bones or lean muscles that gave them a wiry edge-- they were almost zombies themselves, with the feral nature of cornered animals willing to destroy themselves as long as they stayed alive. 

Which was good news for Nikolai because while desperation was great in a crisis, it also tended to make people sloppy.

When the two guards barrelled down the stairs, he lifted his uncuffed hand and swung the loose metal peg that held up the bed towards the first man. 

His arm vibrated from the shock of metal hitting skull, but his captor went down, and he got ready to take a swing at the other guard when the girl ripped the metal pipe away from his hand and slammed the weapon against the other guard’s face. The sound of bones cracking was a symphony in Nikolai’s ears as the bald man collapsed. 

“You couldn’t have unlocked my chains before you had me do that.” She said as she gripped tightly to the weapon.

Nikolai knew she couldn’t see him, but he flashed a smile in her direction anyway. 

“No time to waste I’m afraid. If you promise not to whack me in the head after I let you go, then I can get you out.”

It didn’t really come as a surprise to him when she took some time to consider his offer. If anything, it just signalled that she wasn’t one of the people that had lost their minds through long days of isolation and survivors’ luck. 

“Fine,” she finally conceded. “But if you try to leave me in this hell hole, I promise that you’ll end up just like our friends over there before you take another step.”

“Considering how attached I am to my face, I’ll take that into serious consideration.”

As quickly as he could, he reached into the hidden pocket of his shirt and grabbed the wire he used to pick the lock of his handcuffs. 

The metal restraint fell apart in seconds and he instinctively leapt away from the girl, tensing himself for a potential fight. Instead, she seemed to flex her wrist and stretch her side carefully. 

“They bandaged me up?”

“They do that. Can’t have their precious blood sources dying of infection,” he replied, bending down to retrieve the various weapons that were still hanging off one of the unconscious guards. He had way more important things to do than provide blood for the dirty men and women who could have been half zombie themselves with how gaunt they were and how tight their skin clung to their frail bones.

He ripped the man’s boots off his feet and grimaced as he slipped the too-big shoes on his feet.

If he came across a zombie with smaller sized shoes, he might have to risk his life to take them--because there was no way he was going to be caught dead tripping in this giant’s shoes. 

He finished tucking every conceivable weapon the man had onto his person, and wasn’t even surprised to find the girl already climbing the stairs going topside. 

“Hey!” She yelped as he yanked her down before she reached the open hatch door.

“Shhhh.” Nikolai hushed harshly. Distantly, he could hear the sound of bullets being shot out in the east side of the compound. 

Which was great because it left their side of the compound zombie free, but it also meant that there was a chance that the guards posted there would be even more sensitive to movement. 

It was either facing the living or surviving the dying.

And at this point all Nikolai wanted to do was take a nice shower.

“If I wasn’t going to kill you before, I’m going to--”

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” He interrupted quickly. “We’re going to draw as many of those undead beasts over to our area of the compound, and use that as a distraction to hop the wall and straight into freedom.”

“When did we become a  _ we _ ? Because officially you’re just some lunatic prisoner who obviously has a death wish. And I’m better off fighting my way out of here.”

“Now, who has a death wish?” Nikolai shot back. The keening sounds of the undead were beginning to taper off, as the sound of gunfire increased. Their window of escape via zombies was closing, and he either had to ditch his new prisoner acquaintance or somehow convince her that it was either his way or the dead way. “Okay, I get it. I’m a completely random stranger who happens to have the same blood type as you, and you’re just someone who happened to be a great distraction for my escape plan. But until we get ourselves out of here can we try to get along?”

The girl beside him was silent. For one beat. Then two. By the third Nikolai’s legs were itching to run and leave her to fend for herself. 

“I didn’t hear a please,” she said finally.

“I don’t beg, General. Not even to scary people like you.”

She had the audacity to sniff at him, and he couldn’t help the small chuckle that escaped his lips. It’s been a while since anyone had made him laugh, and though he might never make it out of this hellhole, he was kind of hoping to find out if this girl could do it again.


	4. Chapter 4

Whoever Zoya found herself temporarily allied with was good in a fight. 

After assaulting the three guards that were probably sent to find their missing comrades, the boy grabbed a couple of the loose grenades that were attached to one of their belts and didn’t hesitate to throw them haphazardly at the wall in front of them. 

The resounding boom shook the ground underneath her and no sooner had it went off and torn a sizable hole in the brick wall that the yells-- both of the living and the undead-- got significantly louder. 

Zoya gripped the large machete she was able to snag from one of her captors, and followed close behind the boy who pressed himself tightly to the rubble left by the explosion. 

“You better know what you’re doing.”

“I find that life is more exciting when some things are left to mystery.” She heard the smile in his voice again, and it annoyed her that she was suddenly curious as to what it would look like in the light of the sun. 

Thankfully the brief moment of insanity passed because the first deadened figure darted through the hole of the compound, grunting hungrily as it searched for a victim. 

It’s been about a year and half since America got infested (way before international travel had been officially shut down), and somewhere down the ruthless road of survival Zoya had stopped noticing the little details that made these monsters look human. 

She didn’t even register the smaller stature of the rabid creature throwing herself to the nearest guard with a loud growl and ripping through the man’s leg with animalistic intensity with hands that used to belong to a child. In the early days, Zoya would have felt a little pull of pity at the fate of the child who had been turned too early, and not ripped apart enough to be avoid being reanimated, but she wasn’t who she used to be. And when the next childlike figure darted through the hole and made a beeline toward her, she didn’t hesitate in decapitating the beast, and made sure that her companion hadn’t left her to fend for herself.

“Nice.” He commented simply just as he used the butt of the rifle strapped to him to knock back the more adult creature that turned to attack. The beast grunted in surprise, and while half of its head was caved in from the force of the boy’s blow, it advanced still. It didn’t get far though. Only because two quick shots from the other end of the rifle brought it down to the ground permanently.

The sound of the hoard that had seemed so distant before was closer than before, and before Zoya could say it, the boy beat her to it.

“What do you say we get out of here?”

  
  


By the time the sun started to rise, Zoya’s side was starting to bother her again. Then again, there were practically a dozen aches and pains that were demanding her attention when they had finally stopped by a nearby creek and practically collapsed on the soft earth.

They couldn’t linger here. They weren’t too far from wherever those bastards had taken her, and there was no guarantee that the zombies wouldn’t start wandering out of the compound by now. Based on the shadows they were trying to avoid as they made their big escape, it was one of the largest hoards she’d ever seen, and she didn’t have high expectations for the residents trapped in there. 

Zoya shut her eyes and scrubbed some water over her face, thanking any existent or nonexistent supernatural beings that the water was so blessedly cool.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see a dirty stream,” her companion said. 

In the early morning light, Zoya blinked away the water droplets clinging to her eyelashes and finally looked at the man who she had been fighting beside all night.

She supposed that was when she knew she needed to get rid of her companion sooner rather than later.

Because despite the dirty scruff that crept along his face and the unnatural paleness of his skin from the lack of sunlight, regal cheekbones greeted her and the golden blonde hair that was pushed back only made her see the clear nature of his hazel eyes. He was striking in all the ways that had stopped mattering in this hellscape, and that could only mean trouble.

He noticed her studying him, and if his face wasn’t enough, the smirk that crept into his mouth was even worse. 

“See something you like, General?”

Zoya refused to acknowledge the knowing look in his eye and made it a point to peruse the too-lean body that was leaning towards her, “Unfortunately not.” 

The boy’s smile widened and he moved a bit further away from her. 

“The name’s Nikolai by the way. I don’t usually introduce myself to anyone until the second zombie hoard, but I’m willing to give you special consideration.”

He looked to her in expectation and Zoya dipped her hand back in the stream to avoid his gaze. She took her time drinking a bit of water before she picked herself off of the disgusting ground. “Do you have any idea where we are? I’ve got places to be.”

“Don’t tell me you were planning to go fight another hoard with another person. I thought we were getting along so well.” He raised a hand in mock offense.

“Has anyone ever told you how utterly idioitc you are?” 

“Not recently, but if that’s your way of saying ‘charming’ then I’d be flattered.”

Maybe it’s been a while since Zoya has been around an actual human being, but she didn’t remember people getting on her nerves this much. Then again, she tended to not have a high regard of most people before the infection started either. 

“To answer your question,” Nikolai continued as he rolled onto his back and tucked his hands under his head, “We’re about at the tip of what used to be Virginia.”

Virginia? Despite the obvious inconvenience of being kidnapped, she had to at least thank her now-dead captors, they had at least cut her travel time in half. 

“Well, it’s been a pleasure,” Zoya brushed away some of the dirt from her hands, and restrapped her new machete closer to her back. She figured she could make a compass when she got some more walking in, and maybe make camp in some trees before night fell, “But like I said, I’ve got places to be. Hope you don’t die.”

She started to turn around when his next words stopped her dead in her tracks.

“You wouldn’t happen to be going to the safe havens in Jacksonville, would you?” 

She faced him once more, and did not like the mischief she found dancing in his eyes. 

“How could you possibly know that?”

He shrugged. “Before the radio towers went down it was the last Safe Haven that wasn’t at full capacity. Most people that I come across, and aren’t half dead, are usually headed there.”

“But that’s not where you’re headed,” Zoya drew out. 

He shook his head. “Before my unplanned stay in that dirty basement, I was told on good authority that the Jacksonville location had been infected and overrun.”

Zoya’s blood ran cold.

No.

It couldn’t be.

If Jacksonville had been overtaken, then her chances of finding  _ him  _ were nearly impossible. And if she couldn’t find  _ him  _ then she should have just died along with her aunt and her niece. 

“But, as it turns out there were some survivors that had made their way down to St. Augustine, which is where I happen to be heading.”

_ Survivors _ .

What was the thing Aleksander had told her the night before her whole world was ripped from her? 

_ It’s a new world, darling. The future belongs to those strong enough to survive the present. _

He was still alive.

She knew that for certain, and she was going to find him. 

“Thanks for the tip.” She said after a few moments of thought. Once again, she started to turn around to go her own way, when he spoke up again. 

“You don’t think that maybe we should stick together? Since we’re headed in the same direction anyway?”

“I don’t know you.” Zoya crossed her arms, looking down at him, “And as I said, I don’t trust anyone.”

“To be fair, you do know me. It’s you who refused to introduce yourself. If one of us has any right to be cautious, it should be me.”

“And yet you still want to travel with me?”

“I’ve always been a risk taker, used to drive my mother crazy.” He grinned once more, and then continued, “It’ll be easier to travel with two people. We can keep watch through the night, have fun chats, and kill double amount of zombies. The benefits are endless.”

Zoya tilted her head as she considered his offer. He seemed harmless enough. And she guessed that if he had wanted to kill her he could have left her to fight that hoard by herself. The sky started to turn from pink to orange and she was once again annoyed to notice the way the light hit his burnt blonde hair. Her earlier resolve to leave his presence was dissolving in front of her eyes as the pros of travelling with him started to outweigh the cons. 

He waited patiently for an answer, and she tried to fight the need to slap the smug look off his face when she plopped down next to him as an answer. 

“Do I get a name now or do I have to call you ‘General’ the whole way to Florida?”

“Will me telling you my name get you to shut up?”

There was that smile again, and Zoya didn’t even wait for his impending smart ass reply before she said, “It’s Zoya.”


	5. Chapter 5

Getting to St. Augustine was always going to be a lot of effort. Nikolai knew that way before he was captured and he knew that especially when he was plotting his escape from the compound.

There were miles of flat grounds, cannibalistic monsters, and all kinds of delightfully savage people between him and a possible cure to this terrorizing epidemic. It was an impossible task that was probably going to either kill him or drive him insane.

So it was a good thing Nikolai never liked to look at the odds, and he never really quite had the word impossible in his dictionary.

Impossible? Never.

Improbable? Definitely.

But ever since the grand escape from a compound of Blood Baggers and the biggest zombie hoard he had ever seen, he was starting to actually think he might get to Florida in one piece. 

He was positive it had everything to do with his biting companion that was usually scowling by his side. 

It had only been a little over two weeks since they began their trek together, but two weeks in this zombie wasteland could feel like years. And the silence that Zoya kept trying to keep up would always disintegrate as the miles stretched before them, and there had to be something to distract them from the mind-numbing walking that seemed just as endless as the cracked road they were using to guide them. 

“Alright,” Nikolai breathed as he leaned against a tree trunk that they were using as a rest stop before they tried to find somewhere to make camp for the night, “Next question: Did you or did you not believe in Horoscopes?”

Zoya snorted as she took the barest sip of water from the aluminum water bottle they had found dented and scratched on the road. It was nothing short of a miracle when they found it, and then also found a well that didn’t look too contaminated to pour a precious few ounces of water into it. 

“Seriously? You have three questions left and that’s going to be one of them?” 

Nikolai shrugged. He learned pretty early on it would be easier to have tea with a zombie than to get Zoya chatting about anything other than survival tactics. So he proposed a small compromise that made the long hike more bearable, and let Zoya keep whatever secrets she wanted to keep: everyday he got ten questions. She could pass any time she wanted, but that meant he got another question for the next day.

It worked out, because she usually did pass. 

_ Where were you from? _

_ What did you use to do? _

_ Were you seeing anyone before The Outbreak? _

_ Do you have any family left? _

Those were all topics that gave Nikolai more and more questions, until finally he took the hint. Whoever or whatever Zoya was living for wasn’t something for him to find out, and while he was a little desperate to find out what it was-- he decided to leave it alone. So that could only mean that his questions were going to get a little dumb and ridiculous. 

“You can pass, Nazyalensky.” Nikolai responded as he shut his eyes to give them a break from the glaring sun. He loved saying her last name. It was one of the first questions he had asked her, and while she was hesitant to give it, she eventually gave up and told him. “But I’d just take that as a yes, and viciously mock you for it.”

“Just so we can move on from this dumb line of questioning,” Zoya stretched her legs out in front of her as she looked at the horizon. “I did not ever believe in my horoscope. I don’t really trust bored interns to tell me that my day was going to be meaningful because some planet happened to be in the perfect position for it.”

Nikolai peeked out, and cracked a smile when he noticed something odd.

“You’re lying.” 

She shot him a glare and lifted her nose up into the air. “I am not.”

“You are!” He laughed out loud. It was an odd sound, even to his own ears. Unsurprisingly, there weren’t a lot of things to laugh about when you were fighting for your life, so the lightness that entered his bones as Zoya’s face hardened caught him a little off guard. 

“Nikolai, I swear I will kill you and leave your body out here for whatever animal or zombie comes wandering by.” 

“Follow up question,” NIkolai grinned and leaned forward in her direction, “What’s your sign?” 

“Pass.”

“Really? You’re going to pass on that?”

“These are your rules, Lantsov. Now, unless you want to ask your last question, I suggest we find some high ground before the sun sets. We can probably make it to those bluffs and find some cover.” She gestured up to a ridge that jutted out enough to be a perfect spot for cover, but the incline already made Nikolai’s tired legs burn.

Neither of them had truly known how they ended up on the Appalachian trail when they started their very long hike, but Nikolai figured it was their best route to cut a quick path to Georgia. Then again their makeshift compass and map could be completely wrong and they could end up wandering this dangerous mountain range and dying lost in the woods. 

But at least the view was gorgeous. 

“I think I’ll save it for later.” Nikolai looked up to where she had indicated they make camp and made a grand gesture, “After you, milady.”

  
  
  


As it turned out, the reanimation of the dead did not have any effect on weather patterns. Which was a missed opportunity, Nikolai thought, because the world already had reanimated bodies, why not do something really insane and get rid of the  crazy storms that blew through this part of the country?

Because that would have been really convenient, especially now as Nikolai shivered violently in his soaked shirt and pants, desperately trying to light the small sticks that Zoya had scrounged up for an effort of a small fire. 

“A-an-any day n-now, L-lantsov?” Zoya’s usual growl was concealed by the way her teeth chattered and Nikolai’s hands shook around the lighter that they were able to scavenge from an abandoned car that was left on the side of the road. 

“I’m-I’m trying.” He gritted out. His hands refused to stop shaking. He swore the temperature dropped with every thud of the fat raindrops that drummed outside the small cave they blissfully found. 

“T-t-try f-f-faster-r-r.” 

Nikolai didn’t even bother responding because no sooner had she said the words that a spark finally caught and the smallest flame flickered to life. He wasted no time and set the small amount of kindling alight. He held his breath as he waited for the fire to spread, and breathed out slightly when the flame steadied. 

“W-we’re going to need to tear up that emergency blanket so this doesn’t die out.” Zoya said. He put his hands as close to the flames as he dared, trying to get the feeling back in them.

“Over my dead body,” he responded. “That was our one good find from that car. Let’s tear the shirt we found. It’s useless anyway.”

“We were going to use that for bandages.”

“Just don’t get another injury,” Nikolai argued. There was no way he was losing that blanket. It was the one thing that he had been looking forward to using when they found it. It was at least a chance for some comforting warmth after months of going to sleep shivering and waking up with stiff and cold muscles. 

“With a walking disaster like you? I don’t have high hopes.” 

“Out of the two of us. You’re the only one with an arm injury.” 

“And out of the two of us, which one almost slipped down the mountain when the rain came down?”

“I don’t slip. I take missteps.” Nikolai caught Zoya’s eyes over the small flame they had and despite the very dire situation they found themselves in, he was almost mesmerized by the way the orange flames flickered and reflected off of her eyes. 

Nikolai sighed, “Hypothermia is not my preferred way of death, Nazyalensky, and I can guarantee you that it will be if we dispose of the emergency blanket. If I get injured and get an infection, I give you full permission to stab me in the heart with that trusty machete of yours so I won’t bring you down with me.”

She gave him a cool once-over, and then shrugged, “Fine.”

“Your ruthlessness will never cease to amaze me,” Nikolai said as he tucked his freezing hands under his armpits in a desperate attempt to get his chest to warm up. 

She opened the backpack that was left on the side of the road and took out the shirt that they had been arguing about, “You call it ruthlessness, I call it practicality.” 

Nikolai gave a small smile and then started to clear away any small rocks or pebbles that lay on the cave ground once his hands had retained some of their feeling. There were very few comforts in this very bleak world, the least he could do was make sure no small rocks were biting into his skin when the sun decided to make an appearance. 

“We’re going to need to dry our clothes out,” Zoya said nonchalantly as she started feeding strips of the ruined shirt to the fire, watching with satisfaction as the flames started to grow. 

Nikolai tossed her a wolfish grin, “I knew you’d wanted to get me naked from the start, Nazyalensky.”

She rolled her eyes and then got up from her crouched position. “I think you got that backwards, Lantsov.” She brushed her hands on her wet cargo pants and made a turning motion, “Alright, turn around. I’m getting in the blanket first, and no way in hell am I stripping with you watching me.” 

Nikolai gave her one of his most charming smiles as he turned around, “And how do you intend to keep up this delightful display of modesty when we’re both going to be naked under the same blanket?”

“Is that one of your questions?” she said. 

He snorted, “I wouldn’t insult you with using one of my questions for that. Merely being practical.”

“We’re sleeping back to back. I don’t spoon with anyone who hasn’t fought at least two zombie hoards with me.”

“That’s a shame.” He sighed dramatically, “And here I thought I had really impressed you when I caught that squirrel for dinner two nights ago.”

Zoya made a choked sound that oddly sounded like a stifled laugh, and despite his freezing skin, he felt his belly flutter at the thought of finally eliciting a small laugh from her. Nikolai heard the crinkle of a blanket and Zoya shuffling around until finally there was silence. 

Nikolai glanced behind him and saw her facing the entrance of the cave. He made quick work of stripping out of his shirt and his pants, and slipping under the plastic sheet. Zoya’s back was just as cold as his, and he worried at how cold she really was. 

From where they were positioned, the fire was starting to warm the top of their heads, but the heat wasn’t enough to battle the chill of the storm that was blowing through the entrance their temporary shelter. A gust of wind blew through, bringing in a chilling spattering of rain and causing their small bonfire to almost be completely extinguished. 

Nikolai curled into himself, but as he did, he bumped lightly against Zoya and he felt the tremors that ran through her. 

“Zoya,” From the first time since he really started travelling with her, a faint hint of worry colored his voice, “You’re shivering.”

“Thanks for the notice.” The bite in her voice would have been worse had it not been shaking with cold. 

“You’ll be warmer where I’m sleeping. Switch with me.” 

“I’ll be fine.”

“I know that the whole tough girl act is part of your natural charm. But by the way you're practically shaking out of your skin, you can say that you’re not fine.”

Utter silence was her response, and if Nikolai was the kind of man who tended to give up easily he would have closed his eyes and fell right asleep, leaving her to her own fate.

But he was not and never would be that kind of man.

Besides, Zoya was far too much fun to travel with than to have her die from stubborness and the elements. 

“Please don’t hit me.” Nikolai whispered as he tentatively turned around and put his arm over Zoya’s upper body. Careful that his hands were placed firmly on her stomach and nothing else. She was more than freezing and if Nikolai weren’t so damn noble he would have pulled away instantly. 

“Don’t think this means I like you, Nikolai.” 

“I perish at the thought,” he said softly as her body instantly reacted to his body temperature and scooted closer. 

Nikolai sucked in a breath as the softness of her skin met his, and he tried to think of a hundred zombies in their underwear doing the chicken dance to prevent this very tender experience from turning awkward way too fast. 

It didn’t completely help that Zoya had to squirm for a couple more minutes before she stilled. Nikolai gave a sigh of relief and tried to shut his eyes to get some semblance of sleep.

But after a few minutes Nikolai’s mind wasn’t fading to forgetting dreams like they usually were. Instead, it snatched on tiny details, like the faint crackling of the fire, and the sound of thunder rumbling right outside the cave opening, and the way Zoya was giving him the kind of comfort Nikolai hadn’t felt in a very long time. 

It wasn’t unfamiliar for people to get obsessive attachments in this kind of world. Every day was a potential death sentence, and if someone happens to make your day suck a little less you tended to hold on for as long as you can. Nikolai just didn’t think it was for him. At least not anymore.

It had been hard to think about candlelight dinners with pretty women when he was in the middle of working on his ten millionth test sample of a cure to this virus. No room in his life for anything else but making sure people were fed and weren’t a zombies next meal. But as screwed up as being kidnapped and imprisoned and almost dying was, he was oddly grateful that Zoya was there with him. 

Like two lights trying to find each other in a dark wood.

He felt Zoya’s breaths start to even out and he tried to ignore that the way his hand instinctively drew her in a little closer.

“You awake?” Nikolai whispered into the night.

A crack of lightning filled the air, and Nikolai sighed as she didn’t make a move to answer him.

It was in that silence that he found that maybe he had room for a confession. A warm body that could maybe hear his confession and not look to him for any answers at all. 

“Part of me almost wishes that we won’t make it to St. Augustine,” he continued to whisper at her back. “Back over there, I made myself out to be this golden hero who had the solution to everything. Finding water? Getting food? Knowing the early signs of a zombie infection and how to dispose of the infected? My specialty. Even finding a cure to this rabid disease was the very top of my ‘Will do’ list. And for what? Just another day of scavenging for resources that seem to disappear everyday? Hoping and praying that this illness doesn’t mutate into something airborne? Back there, Nazyalensky, I’m fighting a losing battle. I’m saving a drowning man who refuses to hold on. I’m trying to pretend like I’m living for the day we don’t go running scared when those blank eyed, rotten-flesh-on-legs aren’t trying to eat us.” 

Nikolai paused and shut his eyes, letting his imagination conjure the mountains they were at their prime. With the forest lush and green and the sky that perfect melted orange that turned towards the dipping sun. “But out here? It’s like I can play a big game of pretend. I can pretend that I can live for the day. Live to maybe see the next sunset and keep doing that forever. And maybe if you were awake, I’d use my last question.” His imaginary paradise played out before him. The sound of distant oceans mingling in with the hush of trees and the song of birds. He could smell flowers and earth and fresh air, and the musk of a very familiar woman next to him. She was smiling here--something she’d never ever do-- and she almost looked like she could be happy. 

“What are you living for, Zoya?” He whispered feather soft against the back of her neck and all he got for an answer was the raging storm that continued to shake the very mountain from its foundation.

Nikolai could have laughed at his own delusion for giving such a dramatic monologue to a sleeping woman, but he was far too tired. So he let himself breathe in and out, timing it with Zoya’s breath until he too floated off in a world where he might not have been chosen to carry the worries and burdens of a dying people.


	6. Chapter 6

When Alexander had first heard of the virus his first instinct was to gather all their research and study it. That could be expected from such a rich scientist who had given up all his life’s work to viral infections in animals. He had wanted to find out how it spread and whether it was carried through the saliva or through the blood. He wanted to know exactly what made the people crave the flesh of living creatures and not each other’s and he wanted to find out exactly what caused this mutation. And Zoya, his trusty head of research at his lab, could only follow along. Because there was only one way to fight the enemy, and it was by knowing how they think first, it was the same with this virus.

She had already lost some of her coworkers to it-- their bodies having to be blown apart by a shotgun so they weren’t a risk to any of them-- and she wasn’t waiting for her aunt and her niece to be infected next. So when Alexander decided it was time to move their lab southward towards Florida, she had begged and pleaded for Alex to take them along. 

_ They aren’t going to be dead weight. _

_ They’re strong. _

_ I’m not leaving them behind.  _

She had never been more grateful to him when he finally acquiesced. His devil smile morphed into a saintlike sympathy and Zoya had been naive enough to believe him.

Because on the night that they were scheduled to pick them up from her house, they had vanished. Not a trace or sign of them. And she wanted to look. She wanted to search high and low for them, but her caravan was moving and it was now or never-- she had to survive too.

The only thing that had given her any solace was the thought that Lilliana was smart. She would know what was best for her daughter. She must have had a better escape route than the one Zoya had planned and just didn’t want to tell her. She would have found a way to survive. 

But they were in the middle of Michigan when Zoya found her. 

Lilliana with her once beautiful hair doused in someone else’s blood and her face half buried in a man’s bowels. Her nails were cracked and her flesh was peeled back, revealing the rotting muscle underneath. One of her legs was completely broken while one of her arms was bent at a crooked angle. But the worst part was the growls. The animalistic growl that Zoya had gripping her newly acquired handgun tighter.

Zoya wanted to scream then. She wanted to scream and grab that monster by the shoulders and demand that it explain why her aunt could let this happen. How could she get herself infected? How could she be so careless as to let this happen? 

But she didn’t do any of those things. She just stood there, frozen, trying not to make a sound (they had found out the zombies hunted using some sort of sonar sense), and trying to find the figure of a smaller girl next to her. 

_ “Zoya, there’s nothing you can do, _ ” Alex had managed to smuggle some earpieces away from a fallen security guard from one of the malls they had raided. They had been given to only his favored lieutenants, “ _ We have to move.”  _

_ “How did she get here?”  _ Zoya had given the barest of whispers, cringing as her former aunt had ripped another chunk of dead meat. “ _ She’s supposed to be in California.” _

_ “We may never know. But we have to keep going. It’s a new world, darling. The future belongs to those strong enough to survive the present.”  _

Zoya still cringed at how much she had been willing to believe him, even then. Even after Alexander had started renaming himself as “The Darkling.” Even after he was suspiciously picky on which survivors he invited to join their camp and which he either had killed or taken to his makeshift research tent. She was willing to believe in him. To believe that he was on track to saving the world and making sure monsters stopped feeding off the living. 

That was all before one of his other lieutenants who Zoya had hated, Alina, brought her proof of something she had been claiming for months now. A baseless lie that gave way to truth the more Zoya flipped through what looked like specimen records and the copious notes plastered throughout its pages. 

_ “It’s the people he’s been taking, Zoya. I’m not crazy. He’s been doing this since we left California.” _ Alina had said.

Zoya had scoffed despite the race of her heart, and the speed in which she was reading the pages. Her brain trying to find the descriptions of the two people she was most scared to find. 

_ “It’s true. The only reason I didn’t know about it was because he kept trying to get rid of Mal if I was caught snooping again. But Mal and I are going to leave camp, and if you’re smart after reading this, you’d do the same.” _

There. The first two pages. In his neat and loopy script read, “ _ Description: Girl. Seven years old. 3 feet and 5 inches. Medium brown hair. Testing failed. Dismantled on Sight,”  _ and  _ “Description: Woman. Fifty years old. 6 foot 1 inches. One hundred forty pounds. Testing success TBD. Will conduct further research. _ ” Zoya had to flip a couple of pages until she read, “ _ Testing failed. Released into the wild.”  _

Most people would get numb from the shock of finding out the truth, but Zoya remembered clutching that notebook with white knuckles and unable to move from the sheer number of things she wanted to do to Alexander. 

Zoya’s hands weren’t clean at that point. She’s had to kill for her safety and for the safety of their crew, but for the first time she had never felt such a red hot need for murder until she read that. She had wanted to tear Alex’s lungs from his body and feed them to a zombie and then hope he would reanimate just for the sheer joy of killing him again. She had wanted to cut his arms off and make him watch as a zombie hoard descend on him. She had wanted to do a lot, but she also had to be smart about it.

So while Alina ran away with the mountain man she called a lover, Zoya stayed and bided her time until she thought the time was right. 

Unfortunately, the news of Alina’s (and several other people’s) abandonment had spread and Aleksander had taken it upon himself to enforce a so called Marshall law.

It was about this time Zoya made a grand exit and did her best to kill four of the patrol guards they had acquired, and significantly made a giant mess of all the “research” Alex was doing. 

So as her and Nikolai finally entered Florida, she couldn’t stop thinking about the question he had whispered into her neck four weeks ago. 

_ What are you living for, Zoya? _

It was a stupid question to ask. Because besides her aunt and her niece, there was nothing else. It was all just the next moment until your skills all ran out and the fight finally left you. It was living day to day until you died. 

And while Zoya knew that it was inevitable to meet her end in the jaws of a rotting beast, she was going to make sure that Alexander was going with her.

Because while she may not have much to live for, there was sure as hell something she was willing to die for. 

“There it is.” Nikolai huffed beside her as they crested a hill and looked down into the valley where chimney smoke and miles high barb wire fence guarded the border of St. Augustine. Bodies littered the radius of the gate and she was too far to tell if they were former zombies or scavengers.

Zoya heard the sound of a car engine coming from the road behind them and dropped to her stomach on an instant, taking Nikolai down with her. 

“A simple please would have sufficed.” He coughed out as a mouthful of dirt entered his mouth.

“Shhh…” Zoya hushed. 

She saw the pick up truck that rolled down the cracked pavement with good speed and even better control. She couldn’t make out the driver, but her mouth instantly dried up at the sight of the jugs of water that were securely roped down in the bed of the truck. 

The truck slowed to a stop at the makeshift gate and immediately a squadron of men came out with machine guns raised and pointed at the horizon and at the truck. Another man stepped out, and talked with the driver briefly before the truck was cleared and disappeared behind the fortified wall. 

“On a scale of one to ten, how likely is it that we can just knock and invite ourselves in?” Nikolai’s breath was hot against her ear, and Zoya’s mind flashed back to that night in the cave. 

When she was so tempted to roll over and press her lips against his to finally get the thought out of her head. She had so badly wanted to kiss him and feel his hands on her waist and get a taste of life once again. She had been willing to give in to that small bit of release, and chalk it up to desperation sex or delusion or just because she could. But then he went on that long rant when he thought she was asleep. He had to show that he was a decent human being and just as sickeningly terrified as she was. He had to make her feel understood and a little less alone, and she continued to pretend to sleep. 

(And when they woke up the next morning, with her facing him and his lips on her forehead and her arms around his waist. She’d keep that moment to herself. She’d let it be her one moment of weakness before she put on her armor to face the world again).

Nikolai was still staring at her and she shook her head to clear her thoughts. Which was helpful, because when she turned to answer him she caught sight of a lone figure limping down the road the truck had come from.

It moved like a zombie, but the mannerisms weren’t matching up. The arms were at its sides. The limp seemed more like an injury, and the head wasn’t completely bent at an odd and dead angle.

“Please! Help!” 

There was also the fact zombies couldn’t talk.

“Please! I just need water!” The man’s pleas were growing more desperate the closer he got to the radius of the first pile of bodies.

One shot rang out and landed at the man’s feet.

“Stop.” A metallic voice said from some unseen speaker. “Name injuries and illnesses.”

“What?” He cried out. 

“Name injuries and illnesses. Only the chosen may pass.”

“I don’t have any injuries! Please! I just need water!” He cried again.

“Liars are forfeit of choice. Move along.”

Another shot pierced through the air and embedded itself inches away from his other foot. 

“I thought this was a safe haven!” He screamed.

“Only to the chosen. Move along.”

The man’s head dropped to his chest, and a frustrated scream erupted out of him. 

Zoya flinched, and darted her eyes around for any sign of movement distinctly not human, but nothing moved. Just the man who looked back up at the gates and then his feet.

It was too predictable when he decided to try to rush the gate, and it was even more predictable when a dozen or so guns went off, adding his body to the growing pile at the gate’s door. 

“I would say our odds are fairly low.” Zoya answered as the ground underneath the fresh body started to darken with blood. 

“Not the most gracious of hosts, are they?”

Zoya whispered, “Where did you say your people were camped?”

She felt him shrug next to her, “I didn’t say they were camped. By all accounts, if Genya managed to get our back up plan working then they should already be within the city limits.”

“Or they’re dead.”

“Your optimism never ceases to amaze me, Nazyalensky.” He sighed, “The only way we’re going to know anything is if we get through those gates. From there we can have a better idea of what’s going on and why exactly this city is on a very strict anti-survivor policy.” 

“How exactly are you planning on doing that? Because based on that lovely display the only way we’re getting in there is if we’re ‘chosen’, whatever the hell that means.” 

Nikolai was silent for a few moments, his eyes focused in on the guards and the gates. The sun started to dip in the horizon, and the guards that had been posted along the chain link fence rotated out for a fresh new set. Night would fall soon and worse things than zombies would be on the hunt for them. She could see the wheels of his mind turning and turning until he finally turned to her with a smile that made her stomach twist.

“Oh gods, don’t tell me--”

“You’re absolutely going to hate this idea. But that could be a sign it might work.”

  
  
  


Nikolai was definitely right, Zoya absolutely hated this idea. Because not only were both of them dirty, tired, and weary from the million miles they hiked, but now they had to forgo any sleep they could be having to keep a watch on this fortified city, looking for Nikolai’s perfect moment.

It also really didn’t help that the perfect moment happened in the dead of night, and Zoya was trying with all the breath in her lungs to keep pace with a pick-up truck.

Her legs pumped harder than they had worked before and when she finally grabbed onto the side of the truck, she did her absolute best to not make a sound. 

It obviously failed, because no sooner had she landed in the bed of the truck that it slowed, and she heard a gruff voice yelling in surprise upon finding her standing there trying to catch her breath.

She didn’t even wait for his shotgun to level to her when she unsheathed her machete and swung down at the barrel, batting it away.

The shot swung wide and filled the air with a resounding bang. With a grunt the man tried to swing the gun back at Zoya like a sword. The sound of metal clanged on metal, and she grunted when the man’s meatier hand reached to swat at her leg. She sidestepped him, and stomped on the offending hand.

His snarl was threatening and would have been a tad bit frightening if Zoya hadn’t disarmed him and used the butt of her knife to knock him unconscious. His burly mass dropped to the ground in a loud heap. 

“I was hoping you knew what being subtle meant. But we all have our weaknesses,” Nikolai huffed as he finally caught up with her. 

“Why don’t you try chasing down a pick up truck and land softly, see how you do?” She sniffed at him. She jumped off the side of the car and kicked the shotgun away from the grasp of the other man. “Now be useful and do what you have to do to make contact with whoever will let us in the gate.” 

Nikolai must have heard the threat in her voice because he didn’t even make a useless quirp at her as he jumped into the driver's seat and started to take the truck’s radio apart. He crossed some wires, the crackling white noise sounding too loud in the middle of the deserted road, and by the time he finally got the semblance of a working radio, Zoya was on edge. Her hackles were raised and her fingers were wound around the hilt of her machete a little too tight. 

There was another large crackle before Nikolai gave a breath of relief, “That should work.”

“Should?”

“Hopeful would be a better term, actually,” he said. And with another big breath he started to take two wires and put them together in a series of patterns.

“You found yourself studying Morse Code?” Zoya said after a few long minutes when her mind finally understood what was going on. 

“Requirement when you get into the Navy I’m afraid.” He muttered as he finished his message. “So if I got the right frequency then we should be getting a message--”

A long beeping sound erupted from the radio, followed by a few short beeps. And Zoya would have laughed in utter blind relief if it wasn’t absolutely imperative for Nikolai to concentrate on the series of beeps coming from the radio.

“Genya said that there’s no way in and that there’s no way out. Some sort of dictatorship going around.” Nikolai’s face was grim in the dim light of the full moon, and it got even grimmer as he said, “Not a lot of survivors from my camp made it in.”

“Ask her how she got in,” Zoya pushed on. When they were safe. That’s when he could mourn. But not right now. Not when they were so close.

He relayed the message, and it would take a little bit before this Genya person responded.

“She said that her and David-- that’ll be her husband-- were one of the dozen that were chosen to be brought in. They were allowed to roam the city after a medical exam and have been trying to get out since.”

“Is there any way we could get in?”

The next message took longer, but was worth it.

“Trash chutes!” Nikolai exclaimed. “They had them built in, to minimize any waste collecting throughout the city and they’re the least guarded. If we can find one we can get in and meet up with them!” 

“Brilliant!” Zoya jumped up to his side and wrapped her arms around his neck in a surprising hug. Nikolai laughed, but he reciprocated. And when Zoya pulled back and met his eyes, she would have been close to admitting that they were on the cusp of having a moment. That was before she noticed the zombie that was three feet away from their parked truck. 

“Nikolai!” She yelled as she picked her weapon back up, and tried to make a charge for the creature. But she was only met with more surprise as she saw another crop up silently beside it. Nikolai scrambled to bring his gun up and made quick work of dispatching the two zombies. 

She turned to thank him, but noticed five on the other side. Their approach was as silent as the grave they should be in. Zoya ran and decapitated two at once, and tried not to get too close to the third and fourth as she dismantled their limbs. The fifth was taken care of by a direct head shot from Nikolai.

And yet, from out of the darkness they kept coming. Not making a sound and seemingly coming in droves.

“These seem different,” Nikolai observed as he shot another row of them.

“Huh?” Zoya said from behind as she stabbed and cut and decapitated.

“They’re different!” He said again as the former body of a woman made a swipe at him and he barely dodged it and knocked the barrel of his gun against the side of her head. “They’re silent! And since when did zombies have werewolf claws?” 

At that moment, Zoya sliced the hand off of one of the undead, and it was only then that she saw what Nikolai meant. The nails were melted into what used to be flesh and curved to form claw like hands. These weren’t their usual brand of dead bodies. 

“I’m so glad you noticed.” A chilling voice sliced through the darkness and hit Zoya’s spine. “It took some doing, but I think I found just the right mutation.” 

_ No. No. No. No.  _

This wasn’t supposed to happen like this. She was supposed to be more prepared. She was supposed to have the upper hand.  _ She  _ wasn’t the one who was supposed to be taken off guard. And yet, as the zombies miraculously parted through a silent command and the light of the pick up truck gave the only spotlight, Zoya couldn’t help but feel like her world had been turned upside down.

Again.

“Ah, Zoya,” Alexander said, his devil smile wide and inviting, “It’s been a long time.”


	7. Chapter 7

There were times to fight and claw and scream.

And there were times to wait, bide your time, and strike when the moment presented itself.

Nikolai always chose the latter, but at this particular moment, with his hands bound, his weapon stripped away from him, and standing in the middle of a prison yard, he wanted to do the latter. He wanted to do something other than stand there and count how little their chances were of escaping this alive. 

“So… former boyfriend of yours?” Nikolai muttered to Zoya, who had been deathly silent the whole time they had been captured.

“Now’s not the time, Nikolai,” she whispered harshly.

Nikolai tried to hold his hands up, his handcuffs clinking, “I’m just trying to understand the history here. Jilted ex-lover? Angry co-worker? C’mon work with me--”

“He’s the guy that killed my aunt and my niece. And the only reason that I’m in St. Augustine is to put his head on a spike. So can you drop it and try to conjure some other magic trick to get us out of here?” she snapped at him.

There were few times in Nikolai’s life in which he was rendered speechless, but this time had to take the cake. A dozen questions were on the tip of his tongue, but Zoya had that “I will kill first” kind of look on her face, and he didn’t entirely trust the chains on her hands to save him. So he did as she asked and recalibrated any sort of escape route. But their options were limited.

The prison compound they were in had sky high cement walls with guards perched along the walls with their weapons pointed directly at them. The door they had been ushered through was steel and probably very heavily locked. It would take nothing short of a miracle to get them even close to escaping.

A loud buzzing noise bounced off the rock walls as the doors that Nikolai had just been eyeing opened to the pale man from before and a flank of guards at either of his sides. He had changed out of the dusty travel clothes that he had been in when Nikolai first saw him, and was instead in a pretentious trimmed black suit. 

“I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure,” the man said to Nikolai. “Most people call me The Darkling.”

Nikolai choked on a laugh.

“I’d shake your hand, but,” he rattled the heavy chain binding his hands together loudly, “I don’t shake hands with men who feel the need to call themselves a stupid moniker.”

He heard Zoya chuckle under her breath, and it made getting slammed in the stomach with a high power rifle worth it. 

“Charming.” Alexander deadpanned. Then his gaze flickered over to Zoya, and the same smile he had on his face when he called for their arrest made another appearance. 

“What do you want, Alexander?”

“Oh, my dear Zoya, I’m sure you know. My goals haven’t changed since you so unfortunately decided to turn against me.”

“You killed my aunt and my niece!” she yelled.

“They served a common good,” Alexander placated. “Without those early days my research on the Z virus wouldn’t be possible.”

“And exactly how does weaponizing this virus fit the common good? You just sick any one of these deranged pets on any person that spits on your suit?” Nikolai cut in.

Alexander’s dead eyes snapped to Nikolai’s and he fought the shiver of dread that raced through his spine. There was something decidedly very wrong about the man standing in front of him. Something deranged and delusional that could only mean more bad news for them.

“It’s revolutionary,” Alexander said. “This new world only belongs to those who are strong enough to shape it. How do you think I could get all of this?” He threw his hands up.

Nikolai looked up at the prison lights, the armed guards, and the many more men and women who seemed to keep the building going. It was mildly impressive. How one man with a crazy science experiment could bring an entire city to its knees. It was everything Nikolai could dream about. The resources. The influence. The ability to change other people’s lives.

But not at this cost.

From what Nikolai already knew, it had already cost Zoya her family, and that alone was too high of a price. 

“You’re fucking insane,” Zoya spit out. “You took over a city with your mind-controlled zombies and gate keep so you can decide who gets to live and who dies?”

“Insane?” He laughed. “It’s not insane, my dear. It’s giving the people the best kind of life. The old world was overrun by the weak leeching off of the strong. Bloodlines being diluted with disease and sickness. There’s a chance to start over, Zoya. A chance to rebuild a world that could be perfect. Remember, the future belongs to those strong enough to survive the present _. _ And there can be no tolerance for weakness.”

Nikolai’s stomach churned and burned in a twisted sort of anger. What he wouldn’t give to sucker punch the smarmy bastard.

“But,” Alexander continued, “I’m not here to argue with you or your companion. I’m here to give you a choice.”

“A choice?” Zoya scoffed.

“Hey, why does she get one?” Nikolai complained in an effort to break the dark anger that continued to brew within him. 

Alexander ignored him, and continued to gaze at Zoya. “Come back to me, Zoya. Come back and do the work that you were so good at and change the world with me. You could be the key to the final stage of total control of the mutation. You were the best in our team, just come home. All will be forgiven.”

Zoya glared at him and spit at his feet. “Unless the second option is me strangling you with my bare hands, I have a couple of ideas where you can shove your choices.”

Alexander sighed and gave her a crooked smile. He waved two fingers at the guards who stood at his side and they immediately retreated back behind the steel doors. As the doors slammed, he extracted a single syringe from his coat pocket, a disgusting yellow liquid swirling inside.

_ This day really can’t get any worse,  _ Nikolai thought. He didn’t know Alexander well enough to really make this sort of assumption, but he had a feeling that he was the particular brand of crazy to carry a deadly virus in his pocket without breaking a sweat. 

“I’m sure you can guess that this,” he raised the syringe, “is holding quite a bit of the mutated Z virus. Our research has found that it is best spread through blood cells, but what’s fun about this particular strand is that it’s new and untested. Supposedly it’s mutated in a way that preserves the muscles a bit more and enhances the strength of the former body it will eventually occupy. On the other hand, it could turn the infected symptoms so much worse and go on a wild cannibalistic rampage while consciousness is still active.” 

He took a step closer to Nikolai, and Nikolai saw Zoya’s eyes widen in a surprising show of fear. 

“Option two was simply getting the honor of being my test subjects. And I would like to thank you for volunteering.”

His pale hands reached for Nikolai’s arm. For all he was worth, Nikolai swung his hands away and tried to get his feet to move the barest of inches away despite being chained together, but it was all for naught. Alex had a vice-like grip on his bicep and the tip of the syringe was already breaking through his skin. 

That’s when the world erupted into dust and loud noises and Nikolai fell on his ass.


	8. Chapter 8

Zoya’s ears were ringing. And she may have gone blind.

Because as she blinked, all she could make out were massive dust clouds and debris floating down from the origin of the blast. 

A sharp tug started to pull her away from where she had been trying to recover, and she began to kick and scream in any effort to get away.

She was not going to get captured again. She had to find Nikolai and make sure he was okay. She had to find Alexander and kill him. She had to fight.

“Zoya! Zoya!” The ringing in her ears was starting to subside, and just in time for the dust to clear enough so she saw Nikolai look at her in urgency, “Zoya! Stop fighting! We have to go!” 

Nikolai’s hand and foot chains were gone, and he seemed to be accompanied by another girl who was muscular enough to fight a hoard of three zombies. 

“What--Who’s--”

“I’ll explain later! But right now we have to go!” He pulled her up to her feet and nodded to the other girl. From out of nowhere, the girl took out a chainsaw and got dangerously close to Zoya’s feet when her saw broke through the chains.

“Friend of yours?” Zoya asked as she began to run.

“Of a sort!” Nikolai said. 

His breathing was a little different. Zoya felt a twinge of worry. She saw Alex’s syringe break through Nikolai’s skin, but that couldn’t mean he had taken any virus into his system, could it? 

“Genya is going to meet us inside the communication center!” the girl said.

“Why?” Nikolai cried. But before she could answer a guard stepped out from the rubble and swung his rifle around to point at Nikolai. But he grabbed it by the barrel and slammed it back to the guard. Zoya watched in awe and fear as the gun smashed cleanly through the man, taking him down. 

He met Zoya’s eyes, “I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

“Keep it moving!” The girl said as she tugged on Nikolai’s sleeve in the opposite direction they were going. 

“Answer my question, Tamar!”

“The Darkling has been running his reign from the prison, as cliche as that is.” She shot two bullets in the dusty space, and Zoya was impressed to see two bodies drop to the ground as they passed. 

“You guys are rescuing us  _ and _ taking over an entire city?” Nikolai’s voice was strained this time, and Zoya was absolutely sure of the worst. 

Tamar, as Nikolai had referred to her, shrugged as she ushered them into the building and then ducked behind an overturned vending machine.

“We thought that dictator takedowns would be a good “Welcome to St. Augustine” present. Do you like it?”

Nikolai coughed a laugh, “It took a while for me to unwrap it, but it’s much appreciated.”

“What exactly is our plan?” Zoya snapped.

Tamar regarded her. “Once we get to the control center, we have access to all the research, control of resources, and mass communication of all the guards. We also open the main gates and let more of our people in. Simple.”

“Right. Simple.” Zoya said back. “What happened to Alexander?”

“Alexander?”

“The so called Darkling,” Nikolai breathed. 

Zoya glanced at him, and through the dim yellow lights she saw fat beads of sweat drip down his forehead and neck. His eyes were glazed over and his veins were popping out more than usual. 

“Didn’t see him when the bomb went off. But I doubt he’s gone.”

Zoya bit her lip. She could go after him. Whatever Nikolai and this Tamar person were planning to do in the control center had nothing to do with her. She was at St. Augustine. She was close to her goal. This could be the beginning of the end. All she had to do was leave and go find Alexander.

A round of shots fired off from further down the hall and Nikolai fell in a heap while Tamar returned fire.

“Nikolai!” Zoya cried as she rushed to his side. Blood drained down her face when he felt how cold his skin was too touch, and the veins in his hands were starting to get darker. “How much got injected into you?”

“N-not--much--Hey is it cold in here? Cause I think it’s cold in here.” He mumbled.

Just then a grenade landed at Zoya’s feet and she didn’t even think as she tossed it right back, the weapon exploding in mid toss. 

The ground shook and dust fell from the ceiling. There was more yelling on the other side, and Tamar poked her head up to see if the coast was clear.

“We have to get him out of here before this virus gets any worse!” Zoya hissed at the other girl.

“What do you think I’m trying to do?” She lifted Nikolai up by his arms. “We’re going to have to carry him. You know how to use a gun?”

Zoya rolled her eyes as she slung Nikolai’s arm over her shoulders, “Do  _ you _ know how to use that gun?”

Tamar cracked a crooked smile then tossed her the handgun strapped onto her thigh, “It only has six shots in it and I’m out of ammo. Let it count.”

“I get the handgun and you get the semi-automatic?” 

Nikolai moaned out in pain and Zoya tried not to let panic over him spill over to the panic of the present situation. 

Tamar shot her an incredulous look, “Fine. Let’s go.”


	9. Chapter 9

Meat.

That’s all Nikolai wanted.

Meat. 

The kind that writhed and squirmed and was still warm.

He wanted the blood to touch his tongue and the feel of a weakening pulse against his teeth. 

His mouth was dry from the craving of it, and if he could just get his arms to work he could do it. He had two delectable candidates so, so close--

_ NO _

There was that voice. 

_ GET A GRIP, LANTSOV. YOU’RE STRONGER THAN THIS. _

It sounded so vaguely familiar, as if it was his own but devoid of any lacking hunger.

A loud crash sounded off somewhere to his left, but he couldn’t see what had caused it had it not been for the black hair of whoever was holding him. She smelled delicious under all the sweat, gun powder, dirt, and grime. Her neck was so close to him. All he had to do was move and take a bite.

_ STOP. _

Pain like no other wracked through his body. His muscles felt like they were seizing up completely. He cried out, but it only seemed to magnetize the ache that was tearing into his body. If only he could eat-- that would make it all better. If only he could--

_ YOU’LL GET OUT OF THIS. WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF THIS. _


	10. Chapter 10

Getting to the wing of the control room was surprisingly easy. It was getting through the army of mind-controlled zombies, regular human guards, and Alexander that was going to be more of a challenge. 

“You could have chosen to be with me, Zoya.” He said over the din of explosions and gunshots that were still going off outside. “You could have--”

“Save your shitty bad guy speech for someone who cares!” Zoya snapped. She raised her arm and didn’t hesitate to shoot for his head.

The shot went wide as Nikolai cried out in pain, and Tamar cursed as Alexander’s posse decided to pounce on them.

“I thought you said your friends were here!” Zoya yelled at her. Nikolai was piled on the floor at their feet, and Zoya winced as he curled into himself, obviously still in pain. 

“They must still be on their way!” 

“No shit!” Zoya yelled as she took down three guards, and had her sights set on the fourth.

The woman dodged her bullet, and raised up and threw a knife at Zoya’s direction. The blade skimmed the top of Zoya’s left arm and she hissed at the surprising contact. With a growl of frustration, Zoya gave off two shots and took the woman down-- leaving her with an empty gun.

She grabbed the offending knife and tried to guard Tamar’s blindspot as best as she could. But the numbers were against them. There were simply too many of them, and with Nikolai incapacitated and hurting, it came to no surprise when they were surrounded. 

“Give up, Zoya.” Alex said, his clothes smattered with dirt, “There’s really only one way this ends.”

“And it’s with you dead.” She bit at him.

There was a high chance this really could be the end with Zoya. This could be the scene that the end credits roll over, and leave her with an unfulfilled goal and an empty gun at her side. But damn it, if she didn’t get the last word in. 

Alexander gave her one of his classic grins, before raising his hands up, “Finish--”

A rumble from the opposite end of the hall cut him off, and willing to take the risk, Zoya turned towards the sound. It wouldn’t be too long until a crash would shake the very foundations of this building, taking the legs out of everyone in the hall and leaving everyone to gape up at the monstrosity that punctured a giant hole in the wall.

A tank. A whole ass tank just barrelled into the room, with the long nose of its barrel looking down at Alexander.

“I told you I was the better driver, Brekker!” A voice emerged out of the cockpit of the tank, and out shot a dark head with a manic smile gleaming against his skin.

Zoya looked at the new opening and was even more surprised to see the crowds of people ready and armed pouring into the already cramped space. There was a pale boy with a cane leaning on the tank, a machine gun strapped to his back. A tanned girl strapped with over a dozen knives smiling up at the boy. A curly, red headed boy covered head to toe in what looked like gunpowder. A girl in faded leather pants and some grenades at her waist. And a tall blonde man who had every possible weapon strapped on his person.

They didn’t look much older than kids, but when Zoya looked around, that could be said about the rest of the crowd. 

“Tamar! We made it!” The beautiful girl with a scarred face in the front waved cheerfully at her friend.

Tamar laughed good-naturedly, “I can see that.” 

“What’s--what’s the meaning of this?” Alexander said from the ground. His eyes wide with shock. 

“I think your science experiment is over,  _ Darkling _ .” Zoya said. With the eyes of dozens upon her, she twirled the knife in her hand as she stepped towards him. His guards frozen with fear at the myriad of people pointing their weapons at them, and the zombies standing silent at attention.

She raised her stolen knife to his chest--right where his heart was-- and took a moment to savor the look of absolute terror that pierced his eyes. 

“You can’t kill me.” He said, his voice shaking, “If you kill me, then they’ll be released. Whatever communication code I’d implanted in my own skull dies with me, and they’ll turn on you.”

Zoya made a show of looking around at the cavalry that arrived just in the nick of time. She had never been one for people, both in the days before zombies were more myth than legend and after, but she saw the same hunger burn through them like it did her. They were all looking for a fight. They were looking for any excuse to cause damage to a place that made a crappy situation shittier. And Alexander was the perfect target.

“I think we’ll be okay.” Zoya shrugged. She didn’t even give him the chance to beg before she slammed the knife directly through his heart..

He didn’t so much as scream as the weapon cut through flesh, bone, and muscle. But a slight whimper did leave when Zoya took the knife out. His blood bursting out of the wound and pooling onto the ground. His eyes blinking once then twice, and then nothing. 

Just a shell of a man who had big plans built on delusional wants and dreams, and willing to pay for the completion of them with the blood of people he wasn’t good enough to look at.

A volley of gunshots went off as the zombies that had been silently waiting for a command began to move on their own, and she was satisfied with the dropping of more bodies hit the floor. 

She would have enjoyed this moment a little bit more had it not been for the dying moan that went off behind her.

“Nikolai!” The girl who knew Tamar rushed to his side. “What happened?” 

Zoya turned around and picked Nikolai up again, as best she could, “He got infected with a mutated version of the Z virus. I think I know how to help.”

  
  
  


She didn’t really enjoy saying that Alexander had been right when he said that she was the key to everything when it came to this virus, but he had been right. 

It was more or less foolish of Alexander to use a strain of the African swine fever virus-- Zoya’s specialty when she still worked for him-- and the Z virus. 

The way his scientists had been dealing with it was sloppy, careless, and reckless. 

If this had been released it would have been the epidemics to defeat all epidemics. 

But Zoya was better.

And for what it’s worth, she had a great team at her back as she spent countless hours working at the lab Alexander had been using. Nadia and David seemed almost magic as they calculated and mixed, and Genya was a silent observer, dutifully noting down Nikolai’s changing symptoms. 

All in all they had a cure for Nikolai in under twenty hours and twenty-three minutes.

Fifteen minutes later and they would have had to put a bullet in his brain before he could have caused any kind of harm.

And it would take three more days of recovery, constant monitoring, and force feeding mushed soup into him before he even cracked open an eyelid. 

It would take Zoya less than fifteen seconds to feel utter relief then anger at his stupidity then back to relief then to happiness at seeing that he was going to be okay.

“Nazyalensky,” He croaked out. The dark circles under his eyes were darker than they had ever been. His skin lost some of the color he had gained when they were travelling. And he looked like he had barely made it out of a fight with the Devil himself. It wasn’t until now, Zoya thought he definitely was the most attractive man she’s ever seen, “I finally came up with a good list of questions you might--”

He didn’t get to finish that thought. And the people who had also been waiting vigilantly by his side made a quick exit as Zoya surged forward and captured his lips with her own. 

She felt his laugh into that kiss and she couldn’t help but join him. 

“I take it your glad that I’m alive. Still a sign that you don’t like me?” Nikolai said when they finally parted with their foreheads touching. His hands were twined in her newly washed hair, and she didn’t have it in her to be annoyed with it. 

She traced the new scars that graced his hands, and gave him a smug smirk.

“I might like you a little.” 

Nikolai gave another laugh as he brought their lips together again, and Zoya smiled.

For the first time since the death of her aunt and her niece, she smiled. And with Nikolai holding her like she might have the secret to life itself, she had a sneaking suspicion she was going to have a lot more reasons to do it again. 


	11. Chapter 11

“What do you say, Nazyalensky?” Nikolai asked as he heard her enter what they were now using as a command center. She stopped beside him, and just because he could, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and cupped her cheek with one hand. “Help me run this joint?”

One of her eyebrows quirked up in an amused smirk, and Nikolai felt a flight of butterflies erupt in his stomach. She leaned further into his space and said, “Someone’s gotta keep you in line, Lantsov.”

Nikolai’s other hand drew closer to the ends of Zoya’s braid, and toyed with it, as their lips came inches apart. 

“I might like the sound of that, General.”

She laughed softly and reached up to meet his lips with her own. He could taste her smile against his mouth and Nikolai turned his head to kiss her deeper. To stretch this perfect, wonderful, tender moment for as long as he possibly could. 

There were still zombies out there in their world. 

There were still a lot of gangs and scavengers waiting to break into this safe haven they had taken over. 

There was still a lot of darkness and death that would be knocking on their door.

But Zoya was going to be there with him. And that was enough to defy death itself.


End file.
